The Beta Theme Set: Jubilee
by The Last European
Summary: Entries for the xmen100 Beta ThemeSet: Movieverse Jubilee
1. Watch: California

**#04 - Watch**

_California_

"Hey," Peter says. He is leaning in the doorway and trying to look casual.

Jubilee holds up one finger. Index, of course. Though she'll be tempted to use the other one if he keeps hovering there.

He waits for less than a minute before saying, "Hey, Jubil..."

"One minute!" The nice finger again.

Peter waits. And waits. And waits. He waits forever. Once forever has passed he says her name again.

"Dude," she snaps at him. "What portion of that request did you not understand? And, seriously, what are you doing, talking to me during The OC? And, also, who do I have to blow around here to get a TIVO. 'Cause I am ready and willing to go the distance for some pre-recorded television goodness."

Peter looks un-amused. Cute. But totally devoid of amusement. He crosses his arms over his chest. Jubilee wonders if he's flexing, because if he's not... She swallows hard.

"Well," she covers. "What do you want, oh interrupter of my viewing pleasure?"

"I'm going out," he replies. "I was wondering if you wanted to come."

Jubilee chokes on her own spit.

"Come out, I mean," Peter quickly elaborates, blushing. "Outside of the school. To the diner, maybe. With me."

Jubilee, still coughing, contemplates the matter. He really is cute. And also? Smokin' hot. Maybe she can teach him about jokes and how, unless they contain the phrase 'you might be a redneck', they're funny.

"Sure. Okay. Why the hell not." She shrugs nonchalantly. "When?"

Peter sprawls next to her on the couch. "After The OC."


	2. History: Everything She Knows

**01. History**

_Everything She Knows_

Jubilee is not the best student in the whole world. She's not the best student in the whole school. She's not even the best student in her whole class.

She does, however, know what is important.

Physics is important in a way that English literature is not. Books are nice and stuff, but they're mostly just for entertainment and, when she's in the mood for entertainment, she'd rather just watch TV. Physics isn't entertainment. Physics is her. Without physics, she wouldn't know who she is. So, she knows the Universal Gravitational Constant and how to build a Van de Graaf generator and that she can channel five hundred thousand volts of electricity and that, if she's not careful, she could kill someone with it. But ask her to summarize _A Tale of Two Cities_ and all you'll get is a blank stare.

Flight school is important in a way that art is not. Every other Saturday, Scott takes Jubilee and Paige and Alison to the tiny county airport where they take classes and fly tiny single engine planes and do tandem jumps with instructors. At home, Jubilee has logged more hours in the jet simulator than anyone else. But the last time the school went on a field trip to MoMA, Jubilee paid John forty bucks to set the fire alarms off. It was a small price to pay to avoid hours with things that looked like someone had hemorrhaged on a canvas.

History is important in a way that nothing else is. History is Independence Day and the African slave trade. It's feudal Britain and dynastic China. It's the Inquisition and the Holocaust. It's everything that has ever happened before and everything that might ever happen again. Jubilee knows that history is the most important of all; she knows that, if she forgets where she came from, she'll never get where she's going.

And Jubilee knows that she has places to go.


	3. Breakfast: Long Live Mr Coffee

**35. – Breakfast**

_Long Live Mr. Coffee_

It is just past five o'clock on Sunday morning. The halls are deserted and the classrooms are empty. The mansion is quiet and dark. Most of the residents are safely tucked in bed. Most of the residents are asleep.

There was a time when the girl in the kitchen would have been thankful for the deserted ground level. She would have been glad that no one was there.

A box sits open on the kitchen floor.

An inventory of the box would read as follows:

One (1) X-Box

Four (4) X-Box controllers

One (1) alarm system control panel – front entrance

Two (2) alarm system control panels – kitchen entrance

One (1) Diskman, marked "Property of K. Pryde"

One (1) iPod, inscribed "Property of K. Pryde"

Three (3) alarm clocks, marked "Property of K. Pryde"

One (1) threat of violent death, signed by K. Pryde

Two (2) black Mr. Coffee coffeemakers

The box is labeled, in Scott Summers' very biggest, very angriest, very Sharpie-est block-lettering, "Jubilee's Path of Destruction". The girl touches the lettering and, though there was a time when the words made her scream with outrage, she smiles. She places another coffeemaker, identical to the two already in the box, next to its dearly departed brethren. The melted plastic is still warm to the touch.

The new machine on the counter, identical to the three in the box, was the last one on the shelf.

Scott used to buy them in bulk.

At the first smell of melted plastic, the first spark of electricity, the first crackle of flames, he was there. He was there with a lecture, with a suggestion, with a replacement. He was there with a rueful shake of his head. He was there with a snort of repressed laughter. He was there with a box and a black marker.

He was there.

The last machine, its packaging still next to it, seems to gurgle too loudly in the early morning silence. The girl runs her hand over it as though to shush it. She is careful not to spark.

"Mr. Coffee is dead," she whispers to the empty kitchen. "Long live Mr. Coffee."


	4. Contrition The Triangle Square

**32. – Contrition**

_The Triangle Square Circle Square Triangle X Not Taken_

"Dammit!" Jubilee stomps her foot like a little girl. "I should have killed him."

"Probably," Logan replies.

His face is blank, totally expressionless, unreadable. Telepaths aside, he's the only person in the mansion that Jubilee can't totally massacre in a poker game. Not that that's a bad thing. Playing with him, she's learnt to hedge her bets.

"I could have killed him," she contends.

"I don't doubt it," he says.

Standing next to Logan in the doorway, she holds her head in her hands and avoids looking at the scene in front of her.

"I'm going to totally regret not killing him." Her voice is muffled.

"Maybe not."

"No, I am," she insists.

"Yeah, probably," he concedes.

"I just thought that he deserved a chance, you know? A chance to, like, actually do something." Her voice is so small that anyone else wouldn't have heard her over the din. "A chance to be better than he was."

Logan leans against the doorframe and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"Don't worry, kid," he says. "You'll get another chance to do him in."

"I know," Jubilee wails. "That's why I should have killed him this time."

"Yeah, probably," Logan repeats, smirking at the spectacle before him.

Bobby is doing the Bird. He's on the floor doing the Centipede. He's up again, doing the Cabbage Patch and the Running Man and the Funky Alien. He spins Rogue and dips her so low that she squeals. He Moonwalks past Jubilee, pointing at her.

"In your face, Lee," Bobby screams. "In your face!"

Jubilee wonders how much trouble she'd get in if she kicked Bobby in _his_ face.

Because she wants to.

A lot.

Bobby's doing the Hammer dance, back and forth across the Oriental rug.

"Who's the Tekken champion now, Lee?" he howls. "Who's the big daddy Tekken champion, now?"

Jubilee sighs and covers her face with her hands again.


End file.
